


One Touch of Land

by lonelywalker



Category: The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach
Genre: Age Difference, Canon Gay Relationship, Character of Color, Father-Daughter Relationship, Interracial Relationship, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Older Man/Younger Man, references to an eating disorder, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pella engineers a late-night heart-to-heart with her father and his boyfriend.</p><p>A slightly different course of events following the Chute game in the novel. Spoilers up to that point. Title from Melville.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Touch of Land

The lights were off when Pella came home. It was long past midnight, the quad abandoned but for those blearily returning to dorms after either completing papers or, more likely, finally being cut off at Bartleby’s. If her father tended to get up as early as she did, if not before, he would certainly be asleep by now. Still, she waited in silence by the door for a moment, listening for the tap of computer keys or perhaps a professorial sigh.

Nothing.

She flipped on the light in the entranceway and carefully took off her jacket by the couch, feeling as though she were entering a crime scene. She had never lived there long enough at any one time to think of it as home, but surely Affenlight’s books and coffee, and the familiar aromas of both those things, should have cultivated some sort of pleasant sense of comfort in her mind?

Her jacket joined a navy-and-ecru Harpooners one over the back of the couch. The accompanying bag, laid by the coffee table, was emblazoned with the number 0 and conspicuously clean. She switched on the espresso machine in the kitchen and walked almost-silent steps to the door of her father’s bedroom. 

Even as a child, and petulant as she often was, she had never intentionally walked in on Affenlight with any of his girlfriends. She had never felt any particular threat from the women, either to her mother’s memory or to her own place in her father’s life, and in any case they were always gone soon enough, even the ones she liked. There had only been a couple of confusing incidents when she’d been too small to really comprehend much, and a couple more exceptionally embarrassing incidents when she’d been too big _not_ to comprehend absolutely everything.

He’d never had a boyfriend, though. She’d never even imagined him having a boyfriend when she was at that exploratory, expansive stage when everything was both utterly forbidden and absolutely possible. Perhaps if Owen were twenty years older and anything but a student, she’d have… Well, she would still have been furious with her father for keeping it from her, for sneaking around as if he were a rebellious child out after curfew. But she’d have accepted it.

Or, at the very least, she would do something other than lightly push his bedroom door open and, with a sudden sense of almost malicious glee, drag her thumb down over the light switch.

The sudden light blinded her too, for an instant, and then there they were – her father and Owen Dunne, and of course it was Owen who caught her attention, looking always so absurdly young even without the benefit of his ridiculous pajamas. Owen, who had his arm around her father, didn’t even seem flustered by this sudden invasion, blinking serenely into the light.

“Pella? What on earth are you doing?” Affenlight sat up, shading his eyes, undecided whether to be outraged or worried. “It’s the middle of the night!”

He’d pulled the same trick on her dozens of times, except in those cases it was never actually dark outside and she was a protesting, sleep-deprived tween. Pella was fascinated to stand on the other side of the divide. 

“Hi Owen,” she said.

Owen, she realized, didn’t have his glasses. They were neatly placed on the bedside table by his watch, his clothes rather less neatly thrown on the floor. He raised a silent hand in greeting, and then laid it, calming, against her father’s back.

“Pella?”

As long as she stood there, she had a delicious feeling of power. Her dad was hardly going to get up and drag her out of the room when she was almost positive he was wearing precisely nothing under those sheets. She hadn’t seen him naked in years – hadn’t seen him without a _suit_ since he started at Westish – but his tattoo still looked better than hers did, stark black blending into the reddish-brown skin of his upper arm.

She started with a smile. “Your presence is requested, dear father. I’m making coffee. Let’s talk.”

He groaned, digging the heel of his hand into his eye. “Pella. It’s the middle of the night.”

“So you mentioned.”

Unquestionably she had control of the light switch and, therefore, all the upper hand she required, however tired and irked he might be. 

Owen glanced between them. “Perhaps it would behoove me to take my leave.”

“No.” The two Affenlights spoke in the same instant. Poor Owen. Ever the peacemaker, doomed to selflessly wander into warzones at every opportunity. She felt for him, even as she wished he were still in his own bed across the alley and that he’d never even thought about sleeping anywhere else.

After what seemed to be a long enough silence to make his point, her father sighed. “Fine. I’ll be there in a moment.”

She left the light on and pulled the door closed as she left, the espresso machine already whistling and gurgling. 

Affenlight entered the kitchen a few minutes later, almost a perfect replica of the father she remembered from the breakfasts of her pre-teen years, when he’d disconsolately sip espresso in a t-shirt and boxers, his hair a mess, his eyes red from rubbing away sleep. There’d been a beard then, but now there wasn’t even a hint of salt-and-pepper stubble. He must have shaved before Owen came over. Such a romantic. Owen, of course, was such a meticulously neat creature that he didn’t seem capable of growing a beard.

He glanced at her, still unsure of the tone to set – righteously indignant or apologetic – and poured them both coffee. In the study, he placed one cup in front of her, and sat down on the couch cradling his own as if the apartment were somehow freezing in May. 

“You look cute together.”

If she’d sat down and racked her brains for the perfect way to keep her dad baffled, she couldn’t have done a better job, her tone nicely pitched between sarcasm and sincerity.

He looked at her, wounded, over the rim of his cup, and reached for the packet of Parliaments on the coffee table. She snatched up the accompanying lighter and stuck it safely in the pocket of her jeans before he could react. “You’re smoking too much.”

“You’ve driven me to it,” he said dryly, but removed his hand. “Is everything all right? I mean, other than the obvious.”

“Everything’s fine,” she said. “Other than the obvious.”

His gaze lingered on the cigarettes. “I’m sorry he’s here. I didn’t know you would be home tonight.”

“Why be sorry he’s here? Twenty-one-year-old lover? You must be having more sex than half the freshman – sorry, fresh _person_ – year.”

“Three quarters, I imagine.”

She’d considered, after their argument, that perhaps their relationship really _wasn’t_ physical – falling for a slightly effeminate, delicate, hairless boy like Owen must have happened to a few otherwise straight men, but actually dealing with the extremely unfeminine subject of sex with another man should have been a step too far…

Except that he’d been missing from the apartment the whole night before the Chute game, and she strongly doubted they’d spent all that time reading each other poetry. 

“Well, I’m sorry for walking out on you. Again. So there, we’re both sorry.”

“I love him,” Affenlight said, somehow making that into another apology. “He’s going to Tokyo in September. This isn’t forever.”

He was making those statements seem falsely chipper for her benefit. “Dad. Stop it.”

He set the cup down on the table, raking fingers through his tangled hair. But for the silver streaks and the tired lines around his eyes, he could still be a chastened teenager being reprimanded by his mother for… Oh, whatever farmboys could possibly do in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin. Cow tipping.

“You’re going to get hurt,” she said. “He’s a _student_ , for fuck’s sake. You will be _crucified_ if anyone finds out.”

“He’s twenty-one. I’m not forcing him. I can’t influence his grades. I don’t _need_ to influence his grades.”

“You think any of that matters?”

“It matters to you.”

Which… was true, in its way. “I don’t want you to get your heart broken,” she said softly, for the first time wondering just how much Owen could hear from the bedroom, if he hadn’t pulled a pillow over his head out of sheer politeness.

He smiled. “It might be good for me. I’ve never had one to break before.”

“Bullshit.”

“So. How’s the new place?”

“Quiet. Everything’s quiet.”

“Mike?”

“We haven’t talked… I’ve been reading Proust.”

“I’ve been reading Chekhov. We should probably call psych services.”

“We’re way too fucked up for psych services.”

His brow furrowed. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Henry? O’s worried sick about him. I am too, I’m sorry to say, and I barely know the boy.”

 _O_. “Yeah, me too.” At the very least, Henry deserved his privacy. There was no need for any Harpooners, however well intentioned, to descend on him at the moment.

The door to Affenlight’s bedroom creaked open, and they both turned to look, seeing Owen wearing his Harpooners team shirt over rainbow-striped briefs, his glasses now in place. “The bathroom?” he asked.

The Affenlights pointed as one.

“Thanks.”

They both watched the doorway until they heard the bathroom door click closed.

“You said this hasn’t been going on long. Were you together that night his mother came over? Or when you picked me up from the airport?” She’d had to reassess both evenings in retrospect: both the horrible anguish of having one’s lover in the hospital without being able to tell anyone, and the equally horrible nightmare of pretending to be even vaguely interested in that lover’s mother. She’d felt bad for him despite herself.

Affenlight shook his head. “The first time he kissed me was the night Genevieve was here. I think you let him drink too much. For which I may be eternally grateful.”

“Hey, any time you want to dope up hot guys with pain meds and champagne for my benefit, go right ahead.”

Her dad laughed, then looked a little ashamed to be laughing. He took a sip of his espresso. “He is a hot guy,” he said softly.

“Not really my type.”

“No…”

“Not really yours either.”

“An acquired taste, I think.”

Pella wrinkled her nose. “Ew.” If it had felt nice to discuss boys with Genevieve, bringing up the same subject with her dad was disconcerting to say the least. But it was nice to be talking.

A room away, the bathroom door opened and Owen appeared in the doorway once more. “Guert? Are you all right?”

 _Guert_. It sounded so soft and yet precise coming from him. Most people had a tendency to mangle the vowel, turn it into a staccato bark of a name. Or, of course, take great pains to avoid saying it altogether.

“I’m fine.”

“Buddha!” Pella felt exhilarated, like they’d been drinking scotch again, and slapped the empty couch cushion between them. “Come and join us. There’s coffee.”

He was somehow graceful and self-assured even in stripy underwear. “Thank you, but no. I’ll need my sleep later.” He sat back on the edge of one of the armchairs and crossed his arms. “Pella, tell me… Has Guert always persisted in this absurd claim that he’s fine, despite all evidence to the contrary?”

“Oh, always,” she nodded sagely – finally a subject on which she was the unquestioned guru. “Unless he is in fact utterly miserable with the flu, in which case we are duty bound to harden our hearts and ignore him.”

Owen smiled. “I see.”

She took a breath. “He’s been smoking too much. Has he really been taking his pills?”

“Pills?”

Oh, god. It really was as if she’d grown up just in time to realize her father was, in some areas at least, always going to be a recalcitrant twelve-year-old.

“Incredibly, Pella, Owen does not need to know every detail of my medical history.”

“One or two wouldn’t hurt.”

“And I don’t need the two of you ganging up on me.”

“I think that’s exactly what you need.” Pella cleared her throat and caught Owen’s gaze. “We have a truly terrifying family history of heart disease. And I know he might want to _think_ he’s immune, but the last time he actually told me anything about it, his blood pressure and cholesterol were through the roof.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Affenlight protested.

Even Owen was now ignoring him. “What’s he supposed to be taking?”

“God, I don’t know. Something other than espresso and scotch and cigarettes. At least with you I can be sure he’s getting some exercise.”

Her dad put down his coffee cup and slumped back against the couch with a hand over his eyes, looking for all the world like a pouting, or perhaps simply mortally embarrassed, teenager. Pella decided one more question wouldn’t hurt: “Do I even have to ask if you two are being safe?”

“Pella…” 

“Student Health has a very rigorous STD policy,” Owen said. “I wouldn’t worry. We’re all showered in condoms at the Freshperson Barbecue and then tested every time we set foot in the place. Which, personally, is fairly often. My LGBT group is working on an awareness campaign.”

She looked at her father.

“I don’t like doctors,” he started, which wasn’t a promising sign. “But the college makes me get tested for everything under the sun anyway. At least it’s only once a year, and there hasn’t been anyone but Owen since the last time.”

It wasn’t quite the reasonable, adult, ultra-prepared set of answers she’d been hoping for, but it was something.

“Did you tell her about the house?” Owen asked, which was the nicely-pitched change in subject both she and her father were doubtless longing for.

Her dad shook his head. “Not yet.”

She watched Owen study him for a moment, judging whether this was something to drop or expand upon. “There’s a house?” she asked brightly.

“Guert’s thinking of buying a place by the lake. It’s beautiful, the way he describes it.”

“Oh.” Their last conversation, prior to the revelations about his love life, had been about his insistence on living amid immature, undergraduate chaos at the college. It was nice that he’d evidently thought about doing something to please her, even if the real point had been about dating someone who wasn’t Owen.

“It’s big, too.” Affenlight straightened up a bit. “There’s room upstairs for you to have a bedroom and study of your own. Not that you’d have to stay with me, of course, but you could. If you wanted.”

Pella gave him a moderately enthusiastic smile. “Maybe I should come see it with you.”

He smiled back, truly happy. “I’d like that.”

Much as she enjoyed her independence, which was largely about not having to skulk back from boyfriends’ houses at 4am and be greeted by her father’s gruff paternal speeches, she also worried about him. He needed someone to keep him on track, and would likely need someone even more once Owen left. Besides, there was no boyfriend anymore. Mike would be entirely justified in never speaking to her again, and Henry… She was going to have to stage an intervention with Henry too. If she’d ever thought Westish would be a haven of sanity where she could heal herself, she’d been sorely mistaken. At least Henry and Mike and her father, if not Owen, made her feel completely well-balanced and capable by comparison.

She should have left it there, with an exaggerated yawn and a declaration that she needed to get at least a couple of hours’ sleep before her shift at the kitchens. But there was an unspoken awkwardness that needed, somehow, to be voiced.

“You should come too,” she said to Owen. “You’ll be spending as much time there as I will.”

Owen seemed as disconcerted as he could ever be, which she viewed as a personal achievement. He frowned. “I’ll be in Tokyo for nine months.”

“And then?”

Her dad touched her arm. “Pella, he can’t possibly know what he’ll be doing a year from now.”

“He can know what he _wants_ to be doing. So can you.”

Owen’s supply of diplomatic Owen-words had apparently run out.

Her dad looked troubled. “What I want doesn’t come into it. He’s young and he’s brilliant. There’s absolutely nothing for him here at Westish. We don’t even have graduate programs. We don’t even have a _mall_.”

“I could live without a mall.” Owen’s bare feet hit the floor, and he walked the few steps over to where Affenlight was sitting. “I’m not sure I want to live without you.”

“O, it’s only been, what, six weeks? I can’t ask you to-”

“No, you can’t,” Owen agreed, and leaned in, taking her father’s face firmly between his hands and kissing him.

Pella found herself watching as if she were some ethnographer fascinated by the mating practices of some remote islanders. Perhaps she should have been taking notes.

“It’ll mean some kind of shitstorm, the two of you,” she said once they’d broken apart and Owen had taken the seat next to her, his arm curled around her father’s shoulders. “Even after you graduate… people will talk. You really want to go through that? You could still get fired, and _you_ ,” she addressed Owen, “you really want to tell your mom about him?”

What she really wanted to ask was whether he had any intentions of breaking her father’s heart. Plenty of girlfriends had left him over the years, including her own mother, but he’d never seemed particularly upset about any of them. In most cases he’d been relieved.

Owen, however, was looking at him with not a little of the puppy-dog love she’d seen in her father. “In freshperson year I dated a boy. Jason. I would have done anything in the world for him. I thought about moving to New York so we could both work in the theater. Getting married. Even adopting kids if he wanted. But he never told his parents I existed. He broke up with me and I didn’t eat for a week, didn’t look at a guy for eighteen months. Until Guert was kind enough to let my environmental group come and talk to him… He spent the entire meeting staring at me. I thought I must have soup stains on my t-shirt.”

“I was that obvious?”

“You were _beyond_ obvious.” Owen softly kissed his temple. “I spent two months discussing environmental policy with you, wondering when you were just going to lock the door and take me over your desk.”

Her father looked amused, if slightly chastened. “I’m sorry I was so disappointing.”

“Mm. The love seat was more comfortable, anyway. But to answer your question, Pella, I want to tell the _world_ about him. Genevieve’s suffered through much worse news than her son being in love.”

In her childhood she’d observed her father with so many girlfriends, they’d blurred into vague recollections of good-looking, professional, doubtless very intelligent women, most of whom wouldn’t stick around for breakfast the next morning. She’d never seen him so completely relaxed and content being held rather than doing the holding. Perhaps he was just tired, but…

She bit her lip. “I think Owen and I should start dating.”

“Excuse me?” Her father squinted at her. Even Owen, who she was beginning to regard as some sort of soulmate on the same mental wavelength, looked confused.

“If he’s going to be spending the night here a lot, he needs some sort of excuse. It’s not as if no one can see who comes and goes. So we’ll just say he’s with me. As long as you two keep it down so I can get some sleep, I don’t care what you do.”

“But Pella,” Affenlight said. “He’s gay.”

“And you’re straight. Sexuality is a fluid, blah, blah, indefinable something.” She waved her hand.

Owen raised a finger. “If I might… perhaps I could simply be tutoring you?”

“ _Tutoring_ me?” The very idea seemed like an insult. “All night?”

“All we need is a plausible excuse,” Owen said. “Once Guert buys this house it won’t be such a problem.”

“I don’t know if I’m buying the house yet. And what am I supposed to do while you two are conducting this elaborate charade? Start dating Mike Schwartz?”

“He’s graduating in a couple of weeks,” Pella said. “You can date him all you like. Although you’ll find it a bit harder to take _him_ over any desks. Or couches. Remind me to Windex your entire office tomorrow.”

Owen stifled a yawn. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go back to bed. I didn’t get much sleep and Mike wants us at batting practice by noon. I’d prefer not to doze off in the batter’s box.”

“O got a hit today,” Affenlight said, with the proud smile he’d usually reserved for her paintings when she was in kindergarten. “Or, well, yesterday. Another incredible performance by the Harpooners.”

Pella was slightly underwhelmed by the news that, in a game all about hitting a ball with a bat, a player had managed to hit a ball with a bat. But she managed to make her smile match his. “Congrats.”

Owen dipped his head modestly. "Henry wasn't there. I don't suppose you…"

Somehow, by dint of sleeping with the guy _once_ , she was now some sort of GPS Henry locator. "No," she said, for precisely the same reasons she'd avoided this subject with her dad. But that initial sense of combativeness was dimming, and Owen seemed to genuinely _care_. More than that, he might actually have an idea about what to do that didn't involve quoting baseball stats at her or calling Henry’s parents. "Or, well, yes. I do. He's been living with me."

"In town?" Owen asked instantly, which was nice of him because it prevented her father breaking into some kind of indignant rage.

"Yes… I really did think he needed a break from all this macho baseball stuff. He just needed some time to breathe and rest and get his head together. But… I don't know, Owen. He's not eating. He doesn't go out..."

"We have plenty of counselors on campus," Affenlight said. "People to talk to. And I'm sure-"

Pella held up a hand. "Thanks, El Presidente, but could you please come down a few levels to where the rest of us are for just a moment? The way he is, right now, I don't think he'd go of his own accord. And I don't think we should just check him into some psych ward."

Owen scratched his jaw thoughtfully. "Guert's right. We're not professionals."

"But we're his friends. I don't think he's beyond the pale just yet. I mean… If I get him to come back to campus, do you think you can get him to eat something? Honestly I think some fresh air and a solid meal would do a lot at this point. Might get him to listen to us. I mean, _obviously_ he needs help. If things don't get better in a day or two we'll have to just conk him over the head and take him to St. Anne's. But I want to give this a try."

"Okay," Owen said. "I'll go shopping."

She'd expected her dad to react like he was the only sane adult in the room, but instead he was silent. Deferring to Owen? Or plotting to put in a call to Student Health as soon as they left in the morning? She couldn't very well blame him if he did.

"Um." She'd only been gone for a few days, it was still only a few days since Coshwale, but it seemed like she hadn’t spoken to anyone other than Henry and the kitchen staff in an eternity. "How's Mike?"

Owen's hesitation to answer spoke volumes. "He's playing well. We're all tired. We're missing Henry, but so far we keep winning. I think Mike will do fine right up till the season ends."

"And then what?"

"I don't know. Bartleby's?"

Bartending for a year probably wasn't the worst outcome for a student turned down by all his law schools. Her father had done it. Then again, her father had also spent three years on a boat as a marine biologist, so anything was possible. Maybe Mike should actually use his bachelor's degree and become a hermit philosopher. If he re-grew his beard, he'd certainly look the part.

Affenlight cleared his throat. "I offered Mike a job."

"You did?" Even Owen was looking at him in amazement, if not awe.

"Assistant athletic director. He clearly has the experience and the skills, and his work will more than pay for itself. He's a very sound investment, budgetarily speaking. Whether he takes the position is another matter, but the option's there."

Pella's eyes narrowed. "Okay, which one of us did you do this for?"

Affenlight gave her what should have been a withering look, but his authoritative aura was rather undone by his mussed hair and boxer shorts. "I do manage to act solely for the good of the college, on occasion. Not all of my decisions are motivated by the students' dating lives. Or my own, much as Owen enjoys lulling me to sleep with tales of the impending ecological apocalypse."

"Until I was six, I was convinced I was going to be eaten alive by a whale," Pella said in a confidential whisper to Owen. "He deserves some psychological trauma."

Owen smiled. But for the identity of his boyfriend, she’d be tempted to think of him as a little brother. Instead, she clapped her hands together, like she was chairing a book club. "Well, gentlemen. I think we have now solved the problems of the world. Or Westish, anyway. To bed?"

"To bed," Owen echoed, and gave Affenlight's hand a squeeze as he got to his feet. "It was nice to see you, Pella."

She raised a hand in silent salute.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Affenlight said as Owen quietly trailed back to the bedroom. When the door had closed, he looked earnestly at Pella. “You’re really staying?”

“Well, some of the time at least.”

“And… we’re okay?”

He looked almost too happy. In the past, she’d been tempted to pull the rug out from under him in moments like these. “I ran off with a married man and barely talked to you for four years. So, yeah, we’re okay. But if you’re still with Owen in four years we might have to draw up a new agreement.”

“Our current agreement being?”

“You don’t get fired, you don’t get your heart broken, and you have absolutely nothing to say about _anyone_ I choose to date. Oh, and you take your damn pills. You’re sixty-one, Dad. If you want to be with either one of us for the next ten, twenty years you have to stop acting like you’re… Well, like you’re _me_.”

“Heaven forbid,” he said, that standard professorial chuckle on his lips, and she hugged him. 

It was their first real hug in years, for once not marked by tension or stiffness or vague hostility. At least in the moments their arms were around each other, her cheek nestled against his shoulder, he felt like the reassuring parent, eternally wise and dependable, she’d always needed him to be.

“I missed your birthday,” she murmured into his t-shirt.

“Everyone did.” He was stroking her hair like she was still eight, when they’d still been each other’s everything in a little Affenlight-centric, Harvard-adjacent world. 

She reluctantly straightened up, rubbing away what might have been tears from her eyes. “Even Owen?”

“He was away with the team. We talked on the phone, but they’re three to a room. It’s a little difficult.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes too. “Do you think he’ll stay?”

“If you don’t screw everything up by September. Honestly, Dad. You love this place so much and you expect everyone else is going to hate it. It’s a bigger problem trying to get anyone to _leave_.”

“Right.” He nodded once, an "I admit you have spoken" rather than "I agree".

Pella rolled her eyes and playfully punched his arm. “Dad. If Owen leaves, you’ll be miserable. If he stays, you’ll feel guilty. What is it going to take to make you happy?”

He smiled, getting to his feet and spreading his arms theatrically. “This, right here. You and the college, and a quite unbelievably beautiful man waiting for me in bed. I’ll take this sort of day a thousand times. More.” He took a few steps toward the bedroom before looking back over his shoulder. “Pella. Kiddo. This was nice, but maybe we could have our heart-to-hearts in daylight hours from now on?”

“I’ll have my people call your people. See if we can fit them into our unbelievably busy schedules.”

Once he shut the door, if she really listened, she could hear them talking. A sudden, childish impulse almost made her join them in there, to snuggle up with her dad and his lover as if she really were still as oblivious and self-centered as she'd been in elementary school… Not that she’d ever been in elementary school. 

Instead, she scooped up their cups and went to rinse them out, throwing her father’s Parliaments into the trash. A very late night had already turned into a very early morning, and undressing seemed like unnecessary hassle. She simply toed off her shoes and crawled under the covers, blindly setting her alarm.

Her last thoughts before sleep were that she loved her father, was warming to Owen, and had every hope that their bizarre little romance would end up for the best… 

But, nevertheless, she was going to kill them if they used up all the hot water in the morning.


End file.
